Manipulating human-oriented dictionaries with very simple tools

Manipulating human-oriented dictionaries with very simple tools Jean Gaschler & Mathieu Lafourcado (Jean .Ga~chle~imnq. fF Eathieu. La fourcade@ ] rnac l. f r ) GETA, IMAG-campus (UJF & CNRS) BI' 53, 1:-38041 GI~.I{NOIII.E Codex 09 Abstract It is possible to manipulate real-size human-oriented dictionaries on a Macintosh by using only very simple tools. Our methodology has been applied in the construction of a l:rench-Fnglish-Malay dictionary. This dictionary has been obtained by "crossing" .~mi-aulomatically two bilingual dictionaries. "1"o revise Ihe dictionary, Its well Its to obtain a publisluilile paper forli/ aiid an on-line electronic fornl, we rise only Microsoft Word I'M , a specialized langliage for writing transcriptors and a small but powerful diclionary 1ool. Keyword IAnguistic tools, Transducers, l)ictionary managenmnt, I htman-oriented dictionaries. Introduction In collaboration with Univcrsity Sains Malaysia (USM), we are working on a French-F.nglish-Malay human-oriented dictionary (F'EM project) obtained by "crossing" French-lhiglish and lh~glish-Malay dictionaries. Taking into account the reluclanee of lexicographcrs to revise dictionaries through database interfaces (dB AS ElIl -"~" or 41) TM), we have developed a me th(×lology based on using only very simple lools. For editing, we use Word and its styling facility, because no editor of slructured document is available on the Macinlosh. For iinl~oriing and exporting, we use I/l', a simple specialized langulige for writing transcriptors, and transfonn between representations (normalized ASCII, I{TF, etc.). Finally, we have developed ALEX, a dictionary tool, io support the electronic form. The methods defined have been applied on the FEM dictionary. They concern Ihe correction of errors which can :lppears in a manually buill dictionary and the formatting o1" this dicliona,y. We inlmduee first in more dot,ills lira situation we face with the FEM project. We expose the goals we tend to reach. Then we gives our generic methods and their applications to the specific case of the I:EM dictionary. I. Situation 1. Presentation The FFM dictionary is composed of two pa,ts: a general one (12,000 entries) and a specific one for computer-science tenniuology (2,300 Icnns). Both paper and elcctmnic forms will be iuodnced by mid-94. We have initially received ASCII files obtained firslly by oplieal characters recognition and corrected manually in which the informalions of the French-Faiglish and l{nglish-Malay dictionaries have been crossed. 2. Logical form The printed form of dictionaries rellect their internal structure (Boguraev 1990, Byrd, Calzolari, Chodomw & al. 1987). This slrucinre can lie modelizcd wilh a logical ['el'Ill whidi gives the sequence of the informations conlained by the dictionary. This logical feral contains entries, prononciation p:irls, spelling wu'ianls, grammatical categories, sonianlics informalion, silb-enlries, elc. We have defined a logical form of the arlielo in Ihe FI{M dicfion:uy (fig. 1). (Masculine by default) Pronu nL'ialioll Fntty variant l~ronunciation variant PluralJbrm Phtral Jbmi pronunciation Masculine pluraljbnn Masculine plural Jbnn pivmmciation Mast plural form pivnunciation variant Feminine form Feminine form pronunciatimt Main part of Feminine plural fi,'m an entry Feminine plural feral prommcialion Plural form variant Plurol fomt variant pronunciation French granmlar category Gloss (in French) (semantic categories) lztbel lOiglish equivalent F.n glish …

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